Table Mountains Optics UHC ( Needs clean ) ???

[looking up]

Hello chaps
This filter came with my Meade scope many years ago.
And I thought it would be time to try it ???
2 questions
1 Its quite dirty like mould on filter see pic and what would I use to clean it I have some old UHTC cleaner from Bintel or ????
2 Is this Filter good for Nebula or Galaxys
The reason I ask I have never used filters in over 20 years in Astrophotography.
Anyway hope I can some advice.
Kind regards as always.
Cheers Steve

[Saturnine]

Hi Steve
The UHTC cleaner is fine for cleaning the filter, just use the same methods as cleaning lens etc. If the mould has been there for a while it may have eaten into the filter coatings but you should be able to clean off most of it and it will work fine. The filter is mainly for nebulae, not much use for galaxies though and is a visual filter, not really for imaging, though I have used a Baader UHC quite successfully for imaging from Borlte 5 skies.

[looking up]

Thanks mate
You are a legend.
Cheers Steve ( Also any tips for a basic Galaxy filter that wont break the bank)
Cheers and :thanx:

[Saturnine]

There aren't any galaxy specific filters that I'm aware of, because most of the light emanating from galaxies is starlight, RGB for mono cameras plus some Ha and O111 seems the best mix. For OSC cameras mainly a good Moon & Skyglow filter seems to work, with some broadband nebula filter added to the mix. Not an expert in this by any stretch so hopefully others will add better insight and knowledge on the topic.

[Don Pensack]

There really isn't one, I'm afraid.
Galaxies have broadband light emission, and every filter that cuts light pollution would also dim the galaxy.

The best way to get better views of galaxies is to drive the scope to darker skies.

That doesn't mean that you cannot view galaxies at all in or near a city, merely that all you will see is the cores of galaxies, and quite a bit dimmer than from darker skies.

If galaxies are of interest, I'd look into traveling to darker skies at least once a month on the New Moon dates to see how much more you can see.
It'll be profound.

Don